Delhi's real threat is not Dengue-Chikungunya but Kejriwal and AAP

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Article first published in +ABPLIVE Click here

In India, it is not news until it happens in the national capital. They say in the last two decades more people have died of malaria in West Bengal than the great famine of 1943. However, little has been written on it.

Similarly, one does not see too many statistics on the number of dengue and chikungunya deaths across the country. But, one death in Delhi and boom – the national media jumps upon it like the country is on fire. This is not to in anyway to discount the tragedy or the seriousness of the health scare that looms over the National Capital Region.

Arvind Kejriwal understands this better than most politicians and he has successfully manipulated it to his best advantage since the days of the Anna movement. He realised that an anashan in Jantar Mantar or Ram Lila Ground can get him a thousand times more mileage than a flop-show in a 100 acre Mumbai Maidan.

As a result, Kejriwal has managed to get disproportionate amount of airtime on television and column centimetres in print media, thanks to lazy journalism, than many more accomplished Chief Ministers and seasoned national leaders of long standing. No wonder he fancies himself as the virtual shadow Prime Minister with a licence to comment on anything and everything under the sun – including foreign affairs.

There are two issues at stake here, both affecting the residents of Delhi. First, of course, is the threat of a virtual epidemic which needs to be tackled on war footing. The second is the larger debate about governance in Delhi.

No matter what Kejriwal’s views may be about the powers and responsibilities of the Centre for the civic administration of Delhi, the Union Health Ministry cannot be rushing SOS teams to tackle local health issues of every State.

But, in its enthusiasm to trade blame with AAP, the BJP has missed a huge opportunity to retrieve the moral high ground from under Kejriwal’s hospital bed. It was like the BJP spokespersons trying to shoot mosquitoes in the air when it were the drains that needed cleaning up.

Where are the AAP volunteers who symbolically swept Delhi clean with “jhadus”, the BJP should have asked while hitting the streets with their own workers and RSS swayamsevaks to get MCD and NDMC do their job. That would have earned the BJP gratitude from the people of Delhi and exposed Kejriwal, not just in Delhi but also in Punjab and other States where he is contemplating an entry by AAP.

That Kejriwal is a shirker should have been known to any politically aware observer since he threw in the towel in AAP’s first term in Delhi. This impression was further reinforced when he chose to become a Chief Minister without portfolio.

He has spent his time blaming the Prime Minister and fighting with the LG when not travelling around the country to build a national image for himself as PM-in-Waiting or taking off for Vipasanna and naturopathy retreats. He did all this under the indulgent eyes of the media which for some inexplicable reason has developed a huge soft corner for him.

On his part Kejriwal has assiduously cultivated the media at large and some so-called five-star journalists in particular. Many media worthies have been favoured with coveted positions in educational and other institutions of the Delhi administration and there are rumours about one former editor becoming AAP’s Chief Ministerial face in a coastal State. Therefore, it came as a shocker when Kejriwal tweeted gutter muck at arguably one of the most formidable journalists of our times, Shekhar Gupta, and got into an unseemly spat with a TV anchor.

In the past Kejriwal has not always followed decorum or political etiquette in public life. He has hurled abuses at the Prime Minister. But in using a word like “Dalal” he has gone well beyond his own past record. At one level it reveals Kejriwal’s opinion about journalists, even very senior ones. Whether this has been formed by his own experience and how many “Dalals” masquerading as media doyens he has encountered or done business with, one cannot comment. But, it does smack of there being more to the implosion than can be seen on TV screens.

Here too Kejriwal is singled out for kid-glove treatment by his friends and admirers in the fourth estate. Imagine what the reactions would have been if another Chief Minister had made such a comment. Hell would have broken loose and would not have subsided until the person, however, high and mighty, apologised or expressed regret. The silence of the fraternity is intriguing, to say the least.

There are jokes doing the rounds on Whatsapp about how Kejriwal beat Pinocchio in a lying contest. Kejriwal seems to be on the path to disprove Abraham Lincoln’s famous quote, “You can’t fool all people all the time”.

One can understand if Narendra Modi is giving Kejriwal a long rope to hang himself. But, why is the media soft on him is not only “mushkil” to explain but almost “namumkin” to fathom.

Can Modi afford to dump Jaitley ?

By attacking Arun Jaitley, Modi opponents trying to isolate him

Article first published in +DailyO India Today (Click here to read)

Delhi was rife with rumours about Arun Jaitley's imminent shift from the finance ministry before Budget making starts. Post the Bihar debacle as talks of a Cabinet reshuffle subsided - the chances of Jaitley's removal also receded. After all, with Amit Shah cut to size he remained the prime minister's strongest ally both in the party and the government. It is, perhaps, for this very same reason - Modi's detractors and Jaitley's foes took it upon themselves to do what Modi himself couldn't afford to at this juncture.

Much is being made of the prime minister's "will come out in flying colours" remark comparing Jaitley with Advani. Whether it was a subtle hint at resignation or not - it is significant that the PM broke his customary reticence on such matters. He has reasons to be worried - because the attackers were coming too close for comfort. After Shah and Jaitley, they could next take on Modi directly - as with these two strong lieutenants politically neutered - he would be quite lonely in Delhi. For all his moral grandstanding, Jaitley himself looked rather rattled - knowing he was directly in the line of fire. This is apparent not just in his filing the defamation suit against Kejriwal, but also in his accusation that Kirti Azad met Sonia Gandhi.

Although the ire of the BJP "old guard" and the "fallen-by-the-wayside" was at the collective entity that Arun Shourie called the "Trimurti" - it was Jaitley who they thought was the illegitimate usurper - even after losing his maiden Lok Sabha bid from Amritsar. It was a view that found support even from Modi supporters who felt Jaitley was the Lutyens' surrogate in NDA coming in the way of bold actions. Now, with Amit Shah having been eliminated by his own self-goal in Bihar, Jaitley was easy for the picking.

It may not be a coincidence that the three major scandals to rock the Modi government - that put Sushma Swaraj, Vasundhara Raje and, now, Jaitley, in the life of fire - had something to do with cricket. Vasundhara and Sushma could have been targeted on many issues, but for Jaitley, cricket is, perhaps, the Achilles Heel that opponents were smart enough to latch onto.

The rivalry between Jaitley and Swaraj is one of Delhi's worst kept secrets and has been well documented by some senior journalists. Many, therefore, believed "Lalit-gate" could have been inspired by the Jaitley camp to put Swaraj and Raje on the mat. Lalit Modi didn't pull his punches even then.

Like many in the BJP today Jaitley owed his rise in BJP to Advani - who had appointed him party spokesperson that gave him a national profile. However, post Advani's Jinnah faux pas, he was quick to jettison him and also one of the early Delhi entrants into the Modi camp. While Advani's protégée - Sushma Swaraj - was dithering to accept Modi as PM candidate, Jaitley had decidedly crossed the Rubicon.

The interesting pattern that is emerging now is the anti-Jaitley axis, which seems to be cutting across party lines in reverse trajectory from AAP to Congress and now finally coming home to Advani's residence. It's easy to dismiss this as transient opportunism, though irony dies when Congress spokespersons and Kejriwal accuse BJP of lacking inner-party democracy and shooting the messenger. The truth could run deeper. The "enemy" may have penetrated the inner ranks of the BJP. By eliminating Jaitley and Shah they are hoping to isolate Modi, forcing him to fend for himself. This may be a high-risk strategy - as one can't predict how Modi will react.

So one is waiting with bated breath to see what Modi does on his return from Russia and Afghanistan - whether he'll choose to cut his losses by jettisoning Jaitley or declare war by consolidating his ranks for a fight to finish.

India after AAP

The year 2014 was, perhaps, the second major watershed in post-independence India’s political history after 1977. For many political scribes of the current generation it will probably remain as the most memorable year of their career. That many of them would, therefore,  feel the urge to chronicle it as ‘instant history’ – spawning a new “Read My Book’’ genre of Indian journalism – is quite understandable. Both Ashutosh’ and Saba Naqvi’s books can be broadly classified under this category.

The first, by Ashutosh – the journalist turned activist-politician and AAP leader - has a wider sweep covering Narendra Modi’s incredible run to the Prime Minister’s office and the parallel narrative on the rise of AAP and Arvind Kejriwal. It is a flash-back or recap of events as they unfolded over 15 odd months – filling in the missing bits from his reporter’s diary supplemented with insights of an experienced political journalist.

Ashutosh is candid in admitting, he conceived the book as a journalist but by the time he finished it he had became a politician. Not surprisingly, the lines do get blurred in-between.  Thus, in a way, it is also Ashutosh’ own journey from the sets of TV Studios to the amphitheatre of politics. To his credit, Ashutosh doesn’t try to hide his political leanings and the fact that he became personally close to Arvind Kejriwal and some of his colleagues much before he joined AAP. On occasions he would even advise them on how to tackle tricky media issues (revealing Kejriwal’s high degree of dependence on and feeling of vulnerability to media). This, of course, raises the question of how Ashutosh was able to maintain his objectivity and the troubling issue of journalists consciously or unconsciously crossing the professional line and becoming a part of the political game.

Ashutosh’ description and analysis of the transformation Chief Minister Modi to Prime Minister Modi is riveting. Of course, it would be unrealistic to expect a totally balanced perspective once he takes the plunge into real politics – but it is for us readers to take it with, as they say in recipe books, a measure of salt as per one’s (political) taste.

Ashutosh clearly believes the outcome of the 2014 elections could have been very different hadn’t Kejriwal scored a ‘self-goal’ by resigning as Chief Minister. Indeed, as Ashutosh points out, many thought had Kejriwal continued as CM of Delhi – AAP might have garnered enough seats in the Lok Sabha to play ‘King-Maker’ after the elections.

Ashutosh’ explanation of why he chose to leave journalism to join AAP is not very convincing, He too repeats AAP’s favourite allegation about Modi’s nexus with big business. But, by his own admission, there was no overt pressure from the owners of the network he worked for to toe any particular political line. Therefore, one cannot quite fathom why he was apprehensive about loss of editorial freedom (any more or less than what he enjoyed through his career till then).

If Ashutosh’ was an ‘inside-out’ account of how AAP evolved within the larger political churn in the country - Saba Naqvi could have easily named her book “The Short Official History of AAP” or, by a stretch ‘’The Authorised Political Biography of Arvind Kejriwal’’.  Right from the start it is abundantly clear that the ‘idea of AAP’ had captured her imagination as did the charismatic (what some others may have found ‘enigmatic’’) leadership of Arvind Kejriwal. At the same time, she makes no secret of her deep distaste for whatever BJP under Narendra Modi stood for. The Congress in any case had lost steam and direction. Even fringe parties like BSP no longer had even a marginal utility in Delhi circa 2015. Therefore, for her AAP was not just the best choice – but, perhaps, the only choice. Therein lies the rub.

Ms Naqvi calls it a ‘’Reporter’s Book’’ and no doubt she assiduously followed AAP’s evolution at every stage and each step – right from the days of Anna and IAC (Indian Against Corruption)  Rally in Jantar Mantar.  Through this journey she developed strong links with members of AAP’s core-team –  from whom she could glean intimate details of the party’s inner workings.  But, in doing so it might appear – she dropped her guard and has been too uncritical and unquestioning in her assessment. Outside, of AAP she plays-back very few voices of other political denominations – certainly none which are critical of AAP or Kejriwal. She does quote a few anonymous sources (mostly) of BJP but only to buttress her own views.

Ms Naqvi’s original proposition at the beginning of the book is ‘’AAP...moved on principle of income groups, its focus clearly on class and not castes or communities’’. Such a strategy is not borne out by AAP’s subsequent electoral tactics. She attributes BJP’s success to getting ‘’first past the post’’ – appealing to the middle class, richer sections of society and ‘’then getting a small section of the poor’’ to vote for it – while AAP worked with a bottom up the pyramid approach. However, many analysts felt AAP’s resounding success in the 2015 Delhi Polls – at least partly - came from their mastering the electoral arithmetic well.

Like many – Ms Naqvi was impressed by AAP’s initial promise of ‘’No Lal Batti (VIP)’’ culture. However, she doesn’t comment on the subtle change in position - in their second term – when AAP Ministers are not averse to accepting the frills and perks of office. She is easily touched by tokenism such as Kejriwal breaking out into a song at his ‘swearing in’ or bringing his wife to the AAP HQ, but is silent about Arvind Kejriwal’s perceived shift in style from being ‘’consultative’’ and ‘first among equals’ to the unquestioned leader (perhaps, not ‘autocratic’ or a ‘supremo’ as some of his detractors accuse him of) leader. In talking of AAP’s various innovative ideas of governance – such as ‘Participative Budget’ she doesn’t mention how Kejriwal went through the motions of ‘Moholla Referendums’ before forming government in Delhi but forgot to have similar public consultations before resigning.

Ms Naqvi is happy to accept AAP is a ‘volunteer’ based party (not very different from the cadres of Left parties or RSS Pracharaks) but workers also need to be paid. One would have expected a conscientious reporter to dig a little deeper into the controversies surrounding the funding of AAP. Equally, like Ashutosh, her  accusations of collusion between big business (alleged to own half of India media) and BJP/Modi are a bit sweeping. She talks about Kejriwal taking on the rich and the powerful (read Ambani and Adani) but is silent about the lack of follow-through, which gives the impression of a ‘shoot and scoot’ strategy.

Ms Naqvi very discerning in observing how Kejriwal changed the backdrop from Bharat Mata to Gandhi between Jantar Mantar and Ram Lila Maidan – as he began to distance himself from Anna. However, does not see a pattern (of using people as props and then discarding them) in which Kejriwal jettisons Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan as dead-weight. On the latter show-down, Ms Naqvi clearly sides with Kejriwal, though to be fair she produces verbatim the exchange of correspondence between the 2 camps. In her judgement – “Kejriwal’s critics within the party would have been comfortable with..” a narrower win or even a defeat as ‘’that would have given them greater leverage’. Ms Naqvi believes it will be a minor blip in the history of AAP. She may well be correct.

Though a tad bit too generous in saying Kejriwal combines ‘Gandhian piety’ with ‘pragmatic solutions’, she concludes - not having an ideological baggage (and intellectual arrogance) liberates Arvind Kejriwal. She reminds us of the dialogue from Sholay - ‘Loha lohe ko kaatta hai’ Only time will tell if AAP, which she says is still ‘Work in Progress’ can redeem its promise of alternative politics. – just like Ashutosh’ question, with a little bit of temerity, which very few would dare ask – ‘how long will Modi last in his Chair ?’

PS: The review would be incomplete without commenting about the brilliant writing style of both the authors and excellent editing. In particular, Ashutosh’ book makes a very gripping and racy read – showing he’s perhaps more comfortable with long-form writing than 140 character tweets.

#Kejriwal #Aam Aadmi party #AAP #Saba Naqvi #Ashutosh #Modi #Narendra Modi

 First Published in Business Today India @BT_India *

*Click here for: Unabridged version in BT Web-Edition